A court has handed out the largest ever fine for wildlife crime to Bellway Homes after it admitted "carrying out work at a site where bats were known to inhabit". All species of bats in the UK are protected.
The company had been notified in planning documents that it would first need to obtain the appropriate mitigation and a Natural England European protected species licence.
Bellway housebuilders fined £600,000 for destroying bat roost in south London https://t.co/Cv1pvfJcbL
— Guardian news (@guardiannews) December 11, 2020
Consultants found "at least eleven bat species" when they surveyed Straitgate Farm in 2013, including one of the rarest bats in western Europe.
Little compensation planting has yet been established at Straitgate for protected bats and dormice. Much of the tree planting that took place in 2014 – in an effort to compensate for the ancient hedgerows and veteran trees that would be lost from quarrying – was in the wrong place and had to be cut down.
The People’s Trust for Endangered Species has strongly objected to Aggregate Industries' application to quarry Straitgate Farm, saying:
An extensive amount of important hedgerow will be destroyed. This is completely irreversible. The hedgerows are… likely to have existed for centuries… Compensation planting… for losses of irreplaceable habitat should be at a ratio in the region of 30 – 1. Proposed replanting and that already done falls far short of this.
